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NEW ORLEANS — Fourteen months ago, Jim Harbaugh sarcastically thanked the NFL before a holiday date in Baltimore, which required his team to travel three time zones to play its second game in five days.

“I definitely think it was very considerate of the NFL to reunite the brothers on Thanksgiving,” Harbaugh said. “I think that’s going to be very difficult for our team. There’s no question that we drew the short end of the straw on this one.”

This week, there was no such harrumphing before Har-Bowl II, in which the stakes will be significantly higher and the playing field will be more even than it was in Baltimore’s 16-6 win during the 2011 season.

This time, both the 49ers and Ravens will have had two weeks to prepare in advance of Super Bowl XLVII, which will feature 33 of the 44 starters from the first meeting between brothers Jim and John Harbaugh.

The most notable of those 11 changes in the starting lineups, of course, is the insertion of Colin Kaepernick as the 49ers’ quarterback. A sideline ornament in their previous meeting, Kaepernick has emerged as one of the NFL’s biggest stories since his first start in November.

In his nine starts, Kaepernick has three runs of at least 50 yards, a 99.8 passer rating and has become the first 49ers quarterback to lead two playoff wins since Steve Young guided San Francisco to its last Super Bowl 18 years ago. Kaepernick will become the fourth quarterback to start a Super Bowl in the same season of his first career start.

In the playoffs, the 49ers have averaged 36.5 points, 476 yards and 25 first downs a game while using the read-option extensively.

“They are doing a good job” with the read-option, Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis said. “At the same time, I think when you do watch the film, a lot of people who played against them just never communicated at all. I believe that’s one of the advantages of what we have as a defense.

“We do a job of communicating really very well, whether you have the dive, whether you have the quarterback. How are you going to play this? How are you going to play that? And if you watch the film, you can tell that a lot of people (who) played against the read-option just played as individuals.”

In Baltimore’s 31-28 overtime loss to the Redskins in December, Washington’s read-option quarterback, Robert Griffin III, had a 102.4 rating and had 31 yards on seven carries.

Kaepernick’s counterpart, meanwhile, played in the teams’ 2011 meeting. But not like this.

In Baltimore’s three postseason wins, Ravens quarterback Joe Flacco has eight touchdown passes, no interceptions and a 114.7 passer rating. Flacco, who hasn’t thrown an interception in his past 162 attempts, is averaging 16.7 yards per completion in the postseason. Flacco’s most frequent target downfield is wideout Torrey Smith, who is averaging 22.0 yards on nine catches in the playoffs.

“Our secondary is going to be huge,” 49ers safety Donte Whitner said. “Not allowing his guys to get behind us and keeping them to a certain amount of big plays in the football game is going to be huge.”